ZHENGZHOU (China): China’s Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng ended the year in style by winning the men’s and women’s singles titles at the China 2019 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals on Sunday.
Fan defeated Ma Long (11-6, 12-10, 11-6, 6-11, 11-8) to reclaim the crown he first won in 2017 after Chen Meng overcame Wang Manyu (11-9, 11-6, 11-6, 9-11, 11-6) to seal a record-equalling third straight women’s singles title.
Both Fan and Chen have made sure that they will end 2019 on top of the world rankings.
Japanese teenagers Miyuu Kihara and Miyu Nagasaki scooped women’s doubles gold medals, as Fan and Xu Xin claimed the men’s doubles crown.
World Champions Xu and Liu Shiwen reigned supreme in the mixed doubles.
The four-day event brought down the curtain on the 2019 international calendar. The annual showpiece marks one of the sport’s most prestigious tournaments, offering prize money of up to $1,001,000.
Fan Zhendong finishes year on high
Fan was crowned the 2019 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals men’s singles champion after he defeated Ma Long with in the final, a result that ensures the 22-year-old will overtake compatriot Xu at the top of the world ranking heading into 2020.
“It’s never easy to play against Ma . As you saw, he played at a very high level on Saturday. I just focused on myself and played very patiently. I gave my best. I learnt a lot of lessons from this period and I hope I can turn these lessons to my fortune,” said Fan.
In what was anticipated to be perhaps a closer contest, given Ma’s pedigree as the most decorated male player in table tennis history, second seed Fan took less than 53 minutes to finish off the battle over five games.
31-year-old Ma had missed a golden opportunity to level the scores, when he led 12-10 in the second game, but Fan roared back to win four points in a row to take control of the match – a position of strength that he never looked likely to surrender, especially when you consider his almighty form leading up to the final.
Fan had won the two most recent men’s singles titles on the ITTF World Tour at October’s German Open and November’s Austrian Open, before landing his third career Men’s World Cup crown at the start of December.
Fan exacted his revenge on Calderano at the same stage of this year’s competition, winning in five games (12-10, 11-5, 11-7, 5-11, 11-9) in between his opening day 4-0 victory over Germany’s Timo Boll and a 4-2 win against compatriot Lin Gaoyuan in the semifinal.
